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Monday, November 28, 2005

Spectacular Spaghetti Carbonara

Thanksgiving is over! Well, for several days for most of you, but for me, I had my Thanksgiving party yesterday. It was a fairly big deal - we were 12 plus my brother's 3 month old baby, and I cooked up a storm with some help from my 15-year old niece. I'll write more in detail later! We spent most of Saturday cleaning and decorating our apartment, so we had to have some comforting dinner. This was it.

Spaghetti Carbonara is not a very sophisticated dish, but it's a favorite with many Swedes. Essentially, we're talking spaghetti, parmesan, bacon (or pancetta, sure), egg yolks and lots of freshly ground black pepper. So how many ways can you mess it up? Many.

I used to get the best Spaghetti Carbonara ever when I worked in my sister's little store. It had a pizza place next door that also did some pasta, and I'd call in and order. They'd rush over with a plate of hot, steaming pasta.. and it was the best I ever had. Until, possibly, tonight! I just threw together what I believe was the most successful Carbonara ever! Sure, I did have *five* egg yolks sitting in the fridge.. and a pat of butter.. and a dash of cream. I didn't say this was going to be low-fat, right?! It certainly isn't. But after a full day of cleaning and re-decorating the entire apartment, who cares?

Cook the pasta as you usually do, in salted water. Meanwhile, fry the bacon, add the onion and garlic when it starts to get some color. Fry for a couple of minutes, remove from heat and add the butter. Drain the pasta, but reserve some of the water! Add the pasta to the bacon, toss. Add the parmesan, the egg yolks and a couple of spoons of the pasta water. Mix very well. Add the cream, and more pasta water as you need it. Finish with a good amount of freshly ground black pepper.